AUDEMARS PIGUET UNVEILS DETAILS AROUND ALBEDO—A NEW COLLABORATION BETWEEN TOMÁS SARACENO AND THE AEROCENE FOUNDATION TO BE PRESENTED AT ART IN MIAMI BEACH

Aerocene Albedo, sketches, 2018. Courtesy Aerocene Foundation Image by Aerocene Foundation licensed under the open source Creative Commons CC BY-SA 4.0

Public Programming: Public Hours: December 5–9, 2018 | 10am–8pm (December 6 | 12pm–8pm) Aerocene Explorer Performance | Daily, 10am Solar Cooking | Daily, 11am–1pm Explorer Backpack Borrowing Station | Daily, 12pm–4pm

Location Oceanfront between 21st and 22nd streets (next to Collins Park)

Press Preview: Tuesday, December 4 at 2pm–3:30pm | Solar Flight Demonstration followed by remarks from the artist Aerocene Exhibition, Oceanfront RSVP to [email protected]

Talks: (T)HERE | Entangling Ecologies, Weaving the Social – A Conversation with Rebecca Lamarche-Vadel, Miranda Massie and Rirkrit Tiravanija. Moderated by András Szántó and introduced by Tomás Saraceno | Tuesday, December 4 at 3:30pm Aerocene Exhibition, Oceanfront

SOMEWHERE | Cosmic Imaginaries Towards New Interplanetary Politics – A Conversation with Eva Diaz, Denis Maksimov and Tomás Saraceno. Moderated by Elvia Wilk and introduced by Olivier Audemars | Thursday, December 6 at 5:30pm Aerocene Exhibition, Oceanfront RSVP to [email protected] Le Brassus, 30 November 2018 – Audemars Piguet is delighted to share details around its upcoming collaboration with Berlin-based artist Tomás Saraceno and the Aerocene Foundation, to be presented during Art Basel in Miami Beach. Albedo, the sustainable, site-specific installation, will host public programming including daily solar flight performances, community talks and solar cooking on the Oceanfront sandlot across from Collins Park, December 5–9, 2018.

Developed by Saraceno and Aerocene collaborators, Albedo will take the form of a large-scale temporal pavilion, comprised of 40 reflective, out-turned umbrellas of various sizes, creating a hemispherical sundial on the Miami Beach oceanfront. The experimental structure, which is a continuation of the artist’s work with the Aerocene Foundation, will harness solar energy to lift the iconic Aerocene Explorer into the air whilst keeping it suspended. This floating sculpture imagines a new aerial infrastructure that challenges and redefines a global right to mobility.

The term "albedo" comes from Latin, meaning whiteness. It refers to the amount of solar radiation reflected by a surface in comparison to the total amount it receives. The installation is named for and embodies the aerosolar ethos of Aerocene: functioning free from fossil fuels, using only the energy of the Sun and infrared radiation to power itself. The reflectivity of the Albedo umbrellas allows participants to enter into a relationship with solar energy and the atmosphere. Similarly, the Aerocene Explorer brings awareness to the air we live and breathe in.

The driving concerns of Saraceno’s aerosolar investigations with the Aerocene Foundation resonate with Audemars Piguet’s values and even more so with the mission of the Audemars Piguet Foundation, which has been dedicated since 1992 to the cause of worldwide forest conservation through environmental protection and youth awareness-raising endeavours. As Tomás Saraceno shared: “Our mutual interest in preserving our planet for future generations makes our collaboration in Miami Beach all the more meaningful.”

Throughout the week of Art Basel in Miami Beach, visitors will be invited to participate in the immersive artwork’s performative experiments in tune with Miami Beach’s usually sunny December weather, including community solar cooking—a first for an Aerocene project. The Aerocene team will use parabolic solar cookers and will collaborate with culinary incubator the Wynwood Yard to create a unique culinary experience within the art installation. Daily from 11am to 1pm, the Wynwood team will serve visitors a curated menu of local and sustainable ingredients cooked with parabolic solar cookers and the sun’s energy alone. The food selection, which will change every day, will incorporate Miami’s regional cuisine, including corn tamales. As Tomás Saraceno explains, “With solar cooking, we want to explore the possibilities for more sustainable living. The rapid urbanisation that is taking place around the world correlates with a rapid increase in urban poverty and urban food insecurity. With the help of vertical urban farming, one can produce much more food than with regular farming, contributing to healthier eating accessible to everyone.”

Visitors will also be able to borrow an Aerocene Explorer backpack daily from 12pm to 4pm, allowing them to participate in the work and wider Aerocene mission by flying the sculpture on the beach. The Aerocene Explorer backpack is a community tool for solar-powered atmospheric exploration: a tethered-flight starter kit that offers a new way to learn about local and shared air. Like all Aerocene sculptures, the Explorer lifts off the ground only using the heat from the sun, and floats without burning fossil fuels, helium, or other gases. Indeed, through the multitude of Aerocene activities, visitors are invited to learn how to harness the Earth’s solar energy, which allows for a multi-directional exchange towards a joint practice of reflection, for a world free from dependence on fossil fuels.

Saraceno and his collaborators have also developed a public talks programme that will be hosted during the week of Art Basel in Miami Beach. Including Rirkrit Tiravanija (Artist), Rebecca Lamarche-Vadel (Palais de , ), Miranda Massie (Climate Museum, New York), Eva Diaz (Pratt Institute, New York), Denis Maksimov (Avenir Institute, Berlin), Elvia Wilk (The New School, New York) and Olivier Audemars (Vice Chairmain of Audemars Piguet Board of Directors), the two multidisciplinary talks will explore topics including how it would feel to breathe in a post-fossil fuel era and how we can rethink our relationship with the Universe and response-ability towards Planet Earth.

Albedo will bear a strong kinship with other environmentally-conscious artistic projects commissioned by Audemars Piguet and presented at Art Basel in Miami Beach. These include the 2017 Audemars Piguet Art Commission Slow-Moving Luminaries by Lars Jan, and Theo Jansen’s 2014 Strandbeests, an artistic project in collaboration with the Peabody Essex Museum. Similar to Albedo, these installations investigated fundamental questions about our shared social and ecological future in the form of interactive, experiential, participatory installations marked by a high degree of technological complexity and precision. The Miami Beach oceanfront is, therefore, an inspirational venue to share Albedo with an international public to probe issues of urgent historic and cosmic relevance, and move towards a new Epoch of post-extractivism, the Aerocene.

Across from the Oceanfront, in Collins Park, London-based, Italian visual artist Quayola will present a new public film work titled Promenade; a video diptych exploring the logic and aesthetics of autonomous vehicle computer- vision systems. Different from the human experience, nature is observed and decoded in Promenade with complete detachment. Public screenings of the Audemars Piguet commissioned film will take place on the rotunda in Collins Park from December 6 to 8 (12pm–8pm) and December 9 (12pm–5pm).

Quayola’s film will also be shown in Audemars Piguet Collectors’ Lounge at Art Basel, inside the Miami Beach Convention Center, alongside his photographic series Remains: Vallée de Joux, which was also exhibited at Art Basel in and in Basel this year. His artistry unifies the natural roots of Audemars Piguet with his own visual artistry. His innovative aesthetics goes beyond human senses, incorporating the historic tradition of landscape painting, while mirroring watchmakers’ precision and craftsmanship. For years, Audemars Piguet has been inviting artists to its headquarters to explore the Manufacture’s origins through their own creative interpretations. Quayola created a series of ultra-high resolution prints composed of billions of microscopic points captured by high-precision scanning and drone flights through the secluded forests of the Vallée de Joux amid the Swiss Jura Mountains. Contemplating natural environments through these high-tech apparatuses, Quayola has created new interpretations of the traditional “landscape” of Audemars Piguet’s home.

The Audemars Piguet Collectors’ Lounge also presents the concluding design in a trilogy of lounge concepts by Chilean-born, New-York based artist Sebastian Errazuriz. Errazuriz’s Foundations, based on iron ore—the natural resource at the heart of steel and one of the principal resources used in watchmaking—has previously been seen at Art Basel in Hong Kong and in Basel this year. This design evolves from the previous lounge concepts which were inspired by two other core natural materials native to the Vallée de Joux – ice (Ice Cycle, 2016) and wood (Second Nature, 2017).

“To break the rules, you must first master them.”

Watch a preview of the installation at: https://youtu.be/l7uasODI3jQ

Visuals available under: https://audemarspiguet.picturepark.com/Go/2AAA5BPV

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Notes to Editors

Audemars Piguet Audemars Piguet is the oldest fine watchmaking manufacturer still in the hands of its founding families (Audemars and Piguet). Since 1875, the company has written some of the finest chapters in the history of Haute Horlogerie, including a number of world firsts. In the Vallée de Joux, at the heart of the Swiss Jura, numerous masterpieces are created in limited series embodying a remarkable degree of horological perfection, including daring sporty models, classic and traditional timepieces, splendid ladies’ jewellery-watches, as well as one-of-a-kind creations. www.audemarspiguet.com

Audemars Piguet and Art Pursuing its commitment to craft, creativity and innovation, Audemars Piguet formed a partnership with Art Basel in 2013, supporting the world’s premier contemporary art shows in Hong Kong, Basel and Miami Beach. Since, Audemars Piguet has presented innovative lounge concepts and artworks at all three Art Basel shows, inviting artists to creatively interpret Audemars Piguet’s heritage and origins.

At the crux of this involvement is the Audemars Piguet Art Commission. The Commission, announced in May 2014, draws inspiration from the craftsmanship and technical excellence inherent in Audemars Piguet’s legacy of watchmaking. Every year, an artist-curator duo is selected to realise a new artwork which explores complexity and precision, while enlisting contemporary creative practice, complex mechanics, technology, and science. By inviting artists to push the limits of technical virtuosity and scientific ingenuity, the Audemars Piguet Art Commission forges a link between the traditions of Haute Horlogerie and Art. Recipients are given carte blanche to realise their project. Audemars Piguet provides full financial support for each commission, in addition to the specialised expertise required.

The first Commission, unveiled at Art Basel in Basel 2015, was created by Swiss artist and composer Robin Meier, and curated by Marc-Olivier Wahler. Synchronicity explored the underlying mathematical rules of self-organisation among seemingly unrelated components: fireflies, computers, crickets, sounds and electromagnetic pendulums. In 2016, Ruijun Shen curated Chinese artist Sun Xun’s Reconstruction of the Universe, a large-scale immersive bamboo installation and 3D film, comprised of tens of thousands of hand-carved woodblocks, unveiled at Art Basel in Miami Beach. The following year, Los Angeles- based, multidisciplinary artist Lars Jan was selected for the third Audemars Piguet Art Commission. His large-scale installation Slow-Moving Luminaries, curated by Kathleen Forde, was also realised on the oceanfront at Art Basel in Miami Beach 2017, and explored topics of oscillations, including time, memory and the changing climate. This past June, Semiconductor (Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhardt) presented HALO, curated by Mónica Bello in collaboration with the CERN. Taking the form of a large cylinder, this work is illuminated and enveloped in sound produced by data from particle-collision experiments taking place at the CERN.

Parallel to the Commission, Audemars Piguet supports annual projects whereby artists create works that offer their own, highly personal interpretations of the company’s cultural and geographical origins. Conceived on a smaller scale when compared to the Commission, these projects testify to the deep and fertile dialogue between two distinct areas of creative endeavour— contemporary artists and watchmakers—and are emblematic of the company’s deeply held values. Audemars Piguet first commissioned the photographic works by British photographer Dan Holdsworth in 2012. It also worked with Galerie Perrotin on Curiosity, a pop-up installation by French art duo Kolkoz for Art Basel in Miami Beach 2013. At Art Basel’s 2014 show in Hong Kong, Audemars Piguet unveiled a new panoramic film, Measure, by Austrian videographer Kurt Hentschläger. For Art Basel’s 2014 show in Miami Beach, Audemars Piguet partnered with the Peabody Essex Museum to co-present Theo Jansen’s Strandbeests, animal-like kinetic sculptures harnessing wind power to walk along the seashore in Miami Beach. In 2015, Audemars Piguet presented an eco-wall of living mosses combined with a sound installation titled Wild Constellations by Geneva-based artist Alexandre Joly. In 2016, the brand presented its new exhibition at the Yuz Museum in , which displayed an original video-work, Circadian Rhythm, by Chinese artist Cheng Ran. Starting in 2016, Sebastian Errazuriz’s dynamic, immersive lounge designs have complemented Audemars Piguet’s presentation at each Art Basel show. This year’s design, Foundations, is the final in a trilogy of concepts by the Chilean-born, New York-based artist and designer, each based on a natural element found in the Vallée de Joux. Throughout 2018, Errazuriz’s design is shown aside Italian artist Quayola’s large-scale photographic series Remains: Vallée de Joux, which uses film technologies to depict Audemars Piguet’s origins. His photographic series will be complemented by a video diptych Promenade for Art Basel in Miami Beach 2018. https://www.audemarspiguet.com/en/experience/experience-art

About the Audemars Piguet Foundation The Audemars Piguet Foundation has been contributing since 1992 to the cause of worldwide forest conservation through environmental protection and youth awareness-raising programmes. Since its creation, the Foundation supported over 110 projects in 55 countries. Preserving forests, educating children to the environment, restoring biodiversity and valorising traditional knowledge are the Foundation’s priorities. Its approach aims to initiate, through the projects it funds, a virtuous circle of sustainable development, by and with local communities. As the Foundation embeds Audemars Piguet’s traditional values, it also oversees the company’s corporate social responsibility undertakings globally. The Board of the Audemars Piguet Foundation is chaired by Mrs. Jasmine Audemars, daughter of Jacques Louis Audemars, who initiated the Foundation.

About Tomás Saraceno Tomás Saraceno (b.1973, Argentina) lives and works in and beyond the Planet Earth. After studying art and architecture in Buenos Aires, Frankfurt am Main, and Venice, Saraceno established his studio in Frankfurt am Main in 2005, before relocating it to Berlin in 2012.

His work comprises ongoing research informed by the worlds of art, architecture, natural sciences, astrophysics and engineering. His floating sculptures, community projects and interactive installations propose and explore new sustainable ways of inhabiting and sensing the environment.

Throughout the past decade, Saraceno has collaborated with renowned scientific institutions, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Max Planck Institute, the Nanyang Technological University of Singapore, and the Natural History Museum in London. He was the first person to scan, reconstruct and reimagine spiders’ weaved spatial habitats, and possesses the only existing three-dimensional spider web collection. He directed the Institute of Architecture-related Art (IAK) at Braunschweig University of Technology from 2014 to 2016, and held residencies at the Centre National d’Études Spatiales (2014–2015), MIT Center for Art, Science & Technology (2012–ongoing) and Atelier Calder (2010), among others. In 2009, he attended the International Space Studies Program at NASA Ames. In 2015, he achieved the world record for the first and longest certified fully-solar manned flight.

He presented a major installation at the 53rd Venice Biennale, entitled Galaxies Forming along Filaments, like Droplets along the Strands of a Spider’s Web (2009), for which he received the prestigious Calder Prize. His work has been widely exhibited internationally in solo and group exhibitions, such as Solutions COP21 in Grand Palais, Paris (2015); Arachnid Orchestra. Jam Sessions at NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore (2015); Becoming Aerosolar at 21er Haus, Belvedere in (2015); In orbit at Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen K21 in Düsseldorf (2013–ongoing); On the Roof: Cloud City at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (2012); Cloud Cities at Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin (2011), among others. Saraceno’s work is featured in various collections, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, SFMOMA in San Francisco, Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, and the Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen in Berlin.

Saraceno initiated the Aerocene Foundation, a non-profit organization devoted to community building, scientific research, artistic experience, and education in 2015. Today, the Foundation increases public awareness of global resource circulation, and proposes new interdependent relationships with the Earth. www.studiotomassaraceno.org

About Aerocene Aerocene is an open-source community project and interdisciplinary artistic and scientific endeavour that seeks to achieve ethical collaboration with both the atmosphere and the environment. Its activities manifest in the testing and dissemination of lighter-than-air sculptures that become buoyant when energised by the heat from the sun and infrared radiation from the surface of the Earth, amongst other aerosolar technology advancements. Aerocene reminds us that the air belongs to everyone and should not depend on any type of sovereignty. It should be free from borders and fossil fuels for our world to move towards a clean and sustainable future.

Aerocene is comprised of a dedicated and diverse global community of artists, geographers, philosophers, thinkers, speculative scientists, explorers, balloonists, technologists, and dreamers, whose collaborations are made possible by the Aerocene Foundation, the non-profit organisation initiated by Tomás Saraceno in 2015. This foundation encourages a bottom- up, participatory approach fostering the displaced endeavour of developing research, sensors, and applications related to the use of aerosolar sculptures, in the DIT (Do-It-Together) spirit.

Aerocene notably organises Aerosolar Journeys. The Journeys are a long-term project and a metamorphosis from Museo Aero Solar, established in 2007, transforming used plastic bags into repurposed, flying solar-powered sculptures. Aerosolar Journeys has developed into a multidisciplinary global community project, promoting considerations for alternative life models and demonstrating how a collective project can emerge from individual acts. aerocene.org

About Sebastian Errazuriz Chilean-born, New York-based artist and designer Sebastian Errazuriz was raised in London and obtained a design degree in Santiago and a Master’s in Fine Arts from New York University. Artist, designer and activist, Errazuriz has received international acclaim for his original and provocative works. Tackling everything from political art to giant public projects, and from experimental furniture to product design and women’s shoes to motorcycles, his work is always surprising and compelling, inviting the viewer to look again at realities that were often hidden in plain sight. i.D. magazine in 2007 selected Errazuriz as one of the top emerging international designers. In 2010, he was named Chilean Designer of the Year and in 2011 he was selected for the Compasso d’Oro. His work has been included in exhibitions and collections at the Cooper Hewitt, National Museum of Design, New York; the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA; Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art in Helsinki; the Vitra Museum in Weil am Rhein; the Museum of Art and Design in New York; the Corning Museum of Glass in Corning, NY; the Museo Amparo in Puebla, Mexico; the National Museum of Fine Arts in Santiago and many other institutions worldwide. His first solo museum exhibition, Look Again, took place in 2014 at the Carnegie Museum of Art. Sebastian Errazuriz is represented by Cristina Grajales Gallery and Salon94 in New York. www.meetsebastian.com

About Quayola Quayola is an audio-visual artist who uses the latest advanced software, computer technology, and programming to produce his immersive audio-visual installations. He investigates dialogues and the unpredictable collisions, tensions, and equilibriums between the real and artificial, the figurative and abstract, the old and new. His work explores photography, geometry, time- based digital sculptures, and audio-visual installations and performances. Audemars Piguet first partnered with Quayola on Matter, created in 2012 for the exhibition of the 40th Anniversary of the Royal Oak.

Quayola’s work has been exhibited in museums and art galleries throughout the world. In 2013, he received the Golden Nica award at Ars Electronica. His works have been exhibited at the Venice Biennale, Victoria & Albert Museum in London, British Film Institute in London, Park Avenue Armory in New York, Bozar in Brussels, Palais de Tokyo in Paris, Cité de la Musique in Paris, Palais des Beaux Arts in Lille, MNAC in Barcelona, National Art Center in Tokyo, UCCA in , Paço Das Artes in São Paulo, Triennale in Milan, Grand Theâtre in Bordeaux, Ars Electronica in , Elektra Festival in , Sonar Festival in Barcelona, and Sundance Film Festival in Park City. Quayola is represented by bitforms gallery, New York. www.quayola.com

About Art Basel Founded in 1970 by gallerists from Basel, Art Basel today stages the world's premier art shows for Modern and contemporary art, sited in Basel, Miami Beach and Hong Kong. Defined by its host city and region, each show is unique, which is reflected in its participating galleries, artworks presented, and the content of parallel programming produced in collaboration with local institutions for each edition. Art Basel’s engagement has expanded beyond art fairs through a number of new initiatives such as Art Basel Cities, working with partner cities on bespoke cultural programs. For further information, please visit http://www.artbasel.com

©Audemars Piguet 2018